The Millions points us to Édouard Levé’s photo series Amérique, which is over at Léo Scheer. [Léo Scheer, via The Millions] This is a “series [that] looks at towns in the United States bearing the same names as towns in other countries”.

Hamaya was so overcome by his new sense of the Japanese spirit that during one of his visits to a Snow Country village he tossed the negatives of his Tokyo photographs, records of his earlier “frivolous and weak photographic life,” into the flames of a New Year’s bonfire. (Thankfully not all was lost; I have a book of Hamaya’s photographs that includes some of the urban scenes.)

The results of Hamaya’s brand of ethnography, however dubious its origins, were astonishing. A world that is now lost forever still lives in his photographs. And it has a stark beauty that is utterly distinctive. In the ice and snow of Niigata prefecture, Hamaya found the style that would make him famous. One of the main themes, apart from rice farming and Shinto rituals, is the snow itself.

Photojournalists bear witness at the front line of human experience. But when does photojournalism become exploitative? On the Granta Podcast this week we bring you a recording of an art salon at the Hospital Club London, which featured a presentation of ‘Julie’, a photo essay by Darcy Padilla featured in Granta 122: Betrayal and a dramatic reading of an extract of Padilla’s journal about her work. Granta artistic director Michael Salu, photographer Afshin Dehkordi (BBC, artistic consultant to the Brighton Photo Fringe and festival director of Bread & Roses Centennial) and Daniel Campbell Blight (writer, curator and talks assistant at the Photographers’ Gallery) then explored the relationship between subject and photographer, the cultural and social significance of controversial imagery and the responsibility the media should take when selecting images for publication.